exquisite table service. The fit of passion had left her indifferent and
cold. She was not in the least sullen.

"It would be the kindest act you could do, father," she said. "Oh, I
know that this is no new thing. There is no novelty in the situation of
a girl giving herself to a man whom she despises, for the sake of his
money. The records of the Divorce Court teem with such cases. For the
battered honour of my father I am going to lose my own. Be silent--no
sophistry of yours can hide the brutal truth. I hate that man from the
bottom of my soul, and he knows it. And yet his one desire is to marry
me. In Heaven's name, why?"

Sir Charles chuckled slightly. The danger was past, and he could afford
to be good-humoured again. Looking at his daughter he could understand
the feelings of the lover who grew all the more ardent as Beatrice drew
back. And Stephen Richford was a millionaire. It mattered little that
both he and his father had made their money in crooked ways; it mattered
little that the best men and a few of the best clubs would have none of
Stephen Richford so long as Society generally smiled on him and fawned
at his feet.

"You need have no further fear," Beatrice answered coldly. "My weakness
has passed. I am not likely to forget myself again. My heart is dead and
buried----"

"That's the way to talk," Sir Charles said cheerfully. "Feeling better,
eh? I once fancied that that confounded foolishness between Mark
Ventmore and yourself,--eh, what?"

A wave of crimson passed over Beatrice's pale face. Her little hands
trembled.

"It was no foolishness," she said. "I never cared for anyone but Mark, I
never shall care for anybody else. If Mark's father had not disowned
him, because he preferred art to that terrible City, you would never
have come between us. But you parted us, and you thought that there was
an end of it. But you were wrong. Let me tell the truth. I wrote to Mark
in Venice, only last week, asking him to come to me. I got no reply to
that letter. If I had and he had come to me, I should have told him
everything and implored him to marry me. But the letter was not
delivered, and therefore you need have no fear of those men in the
street. But my escape has been much nearer than you imagine."

Sir Charles turned away humming some operatic fragment gaily. There was
not the least occasion for him to give any display of feeling in the
matter. It had been an exceedingly lucky thing for him that the